When it comes to Yang's subsidiary, we have to say that the grand duke of the Kong family, Kong Lingkan, he is the grand duke of the Confucius family, the second oldest in the family. Kong Lingkan is the most famous of the 4 brothers and sisters, and it is also the one that gives Kong Xiangxi and his wife the most headaches.
1. Kong Ling kan his people
In 1933, Kong Lingkan entered St. John's University in Shanghai. Although Kong Lingkan has been pampered since childhood, Kong Xiangxi and Song Xialing are still relatively strict in their control of children, so Kong Lingkan does not dare to do whatever he wants in front of his parents.
And when he got to the university, he could not go home every day to see Lao Tzu's face, and all around him were flattering and sneaking horses, even the principal and provost respected him for three points, Kong Lingkan began to be solipsistic, and no one was in sight, for example, the school stipulated that students must live on campus during their studies and are not allowed to stay outside the school. Kong Lingkan had just learned to dance ballroom dance at that time, was very obsessed, went out to dance every night, and often pulled some beautiful female classmates together, and the jump was late at night.
When the school closed at 11 o'clock every night, he would climb the wall and come in, or simply sleep in the hotel, anyway, he had money. At the beginning, some students also reported Kong Lingkan's behavior to the school, and later saw the school pretending to be deaf and dumb, and no one cared about it anymore. Every Sunday morning at 8 o'clock, Kong Lingkan arranged for two cars to come to the school gate on time to pick him up. One for him to sit on, and one for a few bodyguards. The school's students and general faculty members ate on the big stove, and the school officials and some professors ate the small stove.
In order to take care of Kong Lingkan, the school specially allowed him to eat a small stove. But after only a few days, Kong Lingkan couldn't stand it. From a young age, he found the food of the small stove really difficult to swallow, so he complained to Song Xialing about how unpalatable the food in the school was. Song Xialing was distressed about her son, so she ordered meals from the hotel every day to send people to school. Therefore, as long as Kong Lingkan made a phone call, someone used a car to deliver food and vegetables for him, rain or shine.
Although Kong Lingkan was a clumsy boy, his ambitions were extremely great. When he was a student, Kong Lingkan had great political ambitions and dreamed of entering the political arena in the future. In college, he organized a student group called the "Nanjian Society" to "unite" the classmates who flocked to him all day long and beckoned. According to Kong Lingkan at that time, the establishment of the "Nanjian Society" was purely for the study of scholarship and the connection of feelings, and had no political significance. At school, the "Nanjian Society" did not have many activities, but had its own regular publications.
The name of the society takes the word "Nanjian" for a reason, kong Lingkan does not learn any techniques, naturally can not think of any good name. And none of the names he proposed left and right satisfied him. It was at this time that Kong Xiangxi returned from his first trip to Europe and the United States, bringing back news about Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Kong Lingkan was interested in hitler's Nazi Party. So he ingeniously used the German translation of Nazis ("Nazi" in Shanghainese is very similar to "Nanjian") as the name of the group.
In the early days of the establishment of the "Nanjian Society", there were not many members, in addition to some classmates, there were also some people who were closely related to the Kong family, such as Yao Wenkai, Gu Xinyi, Lin Shiliang and so on. After Kong Lingkan graduated from university and took up a position in the government, the "Nanjian Society" expanded rapidly. Kong Lingkan transformed this organization, expanded the membership of the organization, and served as the president himself, and the members he recruited were also more complicated, and people from the political, business, financial, and educational circles were mixed in. The activity area of the "Nanjian Society" is no longer limited to Shanghai, but spreads throughout Nanjing, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Tianjin and other places. After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, with the defeat of the Kuomintang at the Battle of Songhu, Kong Lingkan's "Central Trust Bureau" moved to Hong Kong, and the "Nanjian Society" also arrived in Hong Kong.
When Kong Lingkan had just graduated from university, because he had no experience in politics, Kong Xiangxi set up an office at home, with Kong Lingkan as the director, and Kong Xiangxi also sent a close associate as the deputy director to assist him. In this way, you can kill two birds with one stone, not only find a reliable helper for yourself to handle confidentiality, but also let your son be familiar with daily business, know celebrities from all walks of life, and pave the way for future development.
After a period of training, Kong Xiangxi believed that Kong Lingkan already had enough political experience to want him to enter the business world. It just so happened that the Kuomintang government decided to set up the "Central Trust Bureau", headed by the "Ministry of Finance", to handle all trust business designated by the "state" or closely related to the "state". The "Ministry of Finance" is also ready to invest 1 million yuan in its start-up capital at a time.
Kong Xiangxi deliberately wanted Kong Lingkan to put up with this fat shortage. At that time, Kong Lingkan was just 20 years old, and suddenly the head of the authorities must have aroused criticism, so Kong Xiangxi arranged a puppet bureau chief Ye Zhentang for him, and let Kong Lingkan hold real power and manipulate behind the scenes. Although Ye Zhentang was a fellow chiang kai-shek, he was a man of understanding, and knowing that the county officials were not as good as the current management, he delegated power to Kong Lingkan. As a result, Kong Lingkan became the "Emperor Taishang" of the "Central Trust Bureau", and he had to take care of major and minor matters.
After the fall of Shanghai, the Nationalist government gradually retreated, and the "Central Trust Bureau" withdrew to Hong Kong due to the need to receive and transport materials to the outside world. Kong Xiangxi sent Kong Lingkan as the executive director of the "Citic Bureau", acting as chairman of the board of directors and presiding over the business in Hong Kong. At that time, in addition to grabbing the supplied arms, the "China Securities Bureau" also renewed the flying machinery bombs, which provided an excellent opportunity for Kong Ling to accumulate wealth. He used Hong Kong as a free port to do a lot of private import trading and accumulated a lot of wealth.
At that time, the special radio station originally set up by the "Central Bank" in Shanghai was transferred to the concession to work secretly. Kong Lingkan secretly set up a branch in Kowloon to make contact with Shanghai. Soon, the British authorities detected his radio stations and banned them, but Kong Lingkan continued to use them in secret. In the end, due to the carelessness of the staff, he was arrested by the British side and seized personal stolen goods, and Kong Lingkan was also expelled from Hong Kong.
When the news of Kong Lingkan's expulsion from Hong Kong by the British side reached Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek instructed Kong Lingkan to return to Chongqing and explain to his face everything that had happened in Hong Kong. Song Xialing was afraid that Kong Lingkan would become the target of public criticism when he returned, so he went to Song Meiling for help, and Song Meiling decided to let Kong Lingkan study in the United States to temporarily avoid the limelight.
After Kong Lingkan arrived in the United States, he did not have the heart to read at all. Song Xialing lost her temper and said that if Kong Lingkan did not get a master's degree from Harvard University, she would not go back to see her. So Kong Lingkan found a person named Wu Fangzhi, let Wu Fangzhi use Kong Lingkan's name to register at Harvard University, listen to lectures, record, take exams, write papers, defend, and finally get a master's degree from Harvard University as he wished.
2. The origin of Yang subsidiaries
During his time in the United States, Song Meiling was invited by Roosevelt to visit the United States. Song Meiling asked Kong Lingkan to serve as her personal secretary and accompany her around the United States. Kong Lingkan took advantage of this political opportunity to associate with major Us capitalists and hired several Americans who were closely related to exclusive capital at high salaries, including Johnson, the agent of the US financial oligarchy in Washington.
With the strong support of Johnson and others, Kong Lingkan quickly signed contracts with many large American manufacturers, thus obtaining the special distribution rights of major manufacturers in China. This took a decisive step for the "Yangzi Jianye Co., Ltd.", which he later established with a comprador nature, and after Kong Lingkan returned to China, he quickly established the "Yang subsidiary" by using the money and influence of the Kong family, coupled with the various relationships he established in the United States.
The business of young subsidiaries is commercial in nature, the scope is very wide, the American boss can provide, what can make a lot of money, what to distribute.
The early days of Yang's subsidiary can be summarized into three points:
The first is the strong financial support and political influence of the Confucius family.
The second is the support of Song Meiling. As the first lady, Song Meiling was once prominent, but she did not give birth to a man and a half woman for Chiang Kai-shek. Since Chiang Ching-kuo and Chiang Wei-kuo, born to Chiang Kai-shek's ex-wife, had gradually become adults, she urgently needed to find a few nephews in her next generation to compete with them in order to maintain her position in the Chiang family.
Several brothers of the Song clan were married late and had few children, and the only one who had the earliest children and the two riches was song Yiling. Therefore, Song Meiling regarded several children of the Kong family as her own and loved them in every way, and Kong Lingkan was her favorite one. Song Meiling had a "special love" for Kong Lingkan and tried her best to train him to compete with Chiang Ching-kuo and Chiang Wai-kuo.
The third is the cooperation of the Americans. The big American capitalists wanted to use the power of the Kong Song family to control the Chinese market, so they put their trust on Kong Lingkan.
With these three unique conditions, Yang's subsidiary soon became a force to be reckoned with in Shanghai.
3. The beginning and end of the tiger fight
In August 1948, on the eve of the collapse of the Chiang dynasty, the Kuomintang government decided to implement the so-called "currency reform", that is, to abolish the legal tender and use gold coupons. In the first two months of the issuance of the golden yuan bills, the prices in the Kuomintang-ruled areas have temporarily stabilized, but soon they have the same fate as the legal tender. Due to the corruption of the Kuomintang regime and the military defeat, the issuance of gold yuan coupons became larger and larger, and the prices in the areas ruled by the Kuomintang soared irrepressibly like the tide of the Qiantang River, so the plan to rely on "currency reform" to save the Kuomintang from the economic crisis collapsed.
In Shanghai, the economic center of the country at that time, prices fluctuated even more sharply, because most of the merchants were hoarding. In this regard, Chiang Kai-shek was very annoyed and ordered Xuan Tiewu, commander of the Songhu Police and director of the Shanghai Municipal Police, to carry out economic inspections and strictly prohibit hoarding. After Xuan Tiewu received the order, he sent people to investigate, and found that the people who were hoarding materials in Shanghai were tycoons, and most of them were people related to Du Yuesheng, including Du Weiping, Du Yuesheng's son. Xuan Tiewu was afraid of offending Du Yuesheng, so he asked Chiang Kai-shek to resign.
After Chiang Kai-shek learned of the reason for Xuan Tiewu's resignation, he did not approve it and decided to send Chiang Ching-kuo to Shanghai to assist in economic control and supervision of production. After arriving in Shanghai, Chiang Ching-kuo carried out vigorous and vigorous actions, carried out economic inspections, investigated and registered materials, and forcibly suppressed prices. He wanted to use this to hit a few "tigers" to achieve the effect of killing chickens and scaring monkeys, and first made a gesture to Du Yuesheng. Unexpectedly, Du Yuesheng, who was an old treacherous giant, in turn took Chiang Ching-kuo's army. At the material registration mobilization meeting held by Chiang Ching-kuo, Du Yuesheng suddenly proposed to send someone to inspect Yang's subsidiaries. Chiang Ching-kuo knew that Du was taking advantage of the special relationship between the Two Families of Jiang Kong and Jiang Kong, and when it was difficult to ride the tiger, he had to agree.
After investigation, the Yang subsidiary really hoarded a lot of goods, and Chiang Ching-kuo immediately sent someone to seal the Yangzi warehouse. Song Meiling and the Kong family are not only close blood relatives, Song Meiling also has a lot of assets registered in the name of Kong Lingkan and Kong Lingjie brothers, how many large transactions of the Yang subsidiary are made by relying on Song Meiling's position of power, many of these are probably not very clear even Chiang Kai-shek himself, the yang subsidiary is equivalent to the Kong Song consortium, how can Song Meiling sit idly by. She immediately called Chiang Kai-shek in Huludao, northeast China, who was busy with the Battle of Jinzhou at the Battle of Liaoshen, but when she received a call from her wife, she left the war and flew back to Nanjing with her wife to transfer to Shanghai.
As soon as Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Shanghai, he immediately summoned Chiang Ching-kuo to rebuke him; although Chiang Ching-kuo argued on the basis of reason, he was helpless that the relationship between the Nationalist government and the Kong and Song families was too deep, and this was a fact that could not be changed and changed. Soon after Song Meiling took Kong Lingkan back to Nanjing, she arranged for him to fly to Hong Kong, China, and then to Florida, where the Yang subsidiary moved to Miami Beach.
Not long after the news of the resumption of the Yang subsidiary came out, shanghai prices began to soar, gold yuan coupons also began to be thrown out of the market in large quantities, people began to illegally hoard goods, and the Shanghai economic market gradually got out of control. Shanghai was out of control, affecting the whole country, looting, making trouble, shutting down, closing down, and demonstrating in an endless stream; coupled with a series of defeats by the Kuomintang in the civil war, the situation of the Nationalist government was even worse; Weng Wenhao's cabinet announced its downfall, and replaced Wang Yunwu, the finance minister who advocated currency reform and presided over the drafting of "one decree and three methods.", and then the price limit order was canceled, gold and silver foreign currencies were resumed, the registration and declaration of goods was not mentioned, and the prestige of gold yuan coupons was swept away, and the Nationalist government had to double a large number of printed banknotes to make up for this big rotten hole.
Song Meiling's release of the "tiger" to the mountains dealt a fatal blow to Chiang Ching-kuo's "tiger fighting campaign." Chiang Ching-kuo felt deeply interested in "reforming, was powerless to return to heaven, and resigned from his post as "Shanghai economic supervisor" in anger. He wrote in his diary: "Businessmen are hateful, but politicians in the party are even more hateful." He believes that the "Jiang Family Dynasty" was pushed to the road of extinction by these relatives of the emperor and the state, corrupt officials and corrupt officials. Chiang Ching-kuo later told a friend: "The failure of Shanghai's economic management is more serious than the consequences of the loss of Jinan." ”
Affected by this blow, Chiang Ching-kuo shut himself in the door of the room and saw no one, pouring wine all day long, and finally dragged it out until November 1, 1948, issued a statement in which he said: "In the 70 days of work, instead of completing the plan and tasks, in some places, the suffering of the citizens of Shanghai has been deepened. "Jiang Qingtian" finally left Shanghai after 5 days and returned to his apartment in Hangzhou, and a vigorous "tiger fighting movement" came to an disgraceful end.
At that time, the Shanghai Ta Kung Pao published an editorial called "Fighting Tiger Praise", which read:
"Watching the tiger, the wolf running the pig suddenly boiling Huangpu... There was no heavy rain after the thunder, and the shopping mall tiger was still there... The world is full of wolves and tigers, and it is difficult to clap alone. ”
For Chiang Ching-kuo, the "Tiger Fighting Movement" was still just a small incident, and compared with the political, military, and economic difficulties that the Kuomintang was in at that time, the dynastic regime was in jeopardy, and this was the "big thing" that Chiang Ching-kuo needed to worry about.